


Public Welfare Service 


Bulletin No. 2 


(Third Edition) 


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} 1937 


UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS 


SrecrRieity 


Its Process of Manufacture and Distribution 
Pictured in Simple Language 


For Use of School Students, English and 
Current Topics Classes and Debating Clubs 


Issued by 
ILLINOIS COMMITTEE on PUBLIC UTILITY INFORMATION 
125 South Clark Street - - - Chicago, Illinois 


ELECTRICITY — Zhe Giant Energy 


Introductory: 


Electricity has been called the giant energy. 
Within the memory of men now living it has 
revolutionized the world. It has made possible, 
within half a century, greater progress than in 
all the 500,000 years of history which preceded it 
and which science gives to the career of man on 
earth. 

Man has learned to harness, distribute and util- 
ize this secret power for day and night service 
throughout the civilized world. It has banished 
darkness, lightened the burden of the housewife 
and become the silent partner of industry. 

The story of the development of the use of 
electricity is a fascinating recital. It is a story 
of progress. Electricity has brought about @ rev- 
olution in industry, for it has enabled one man to 
do the work of many men, and made possible 
huge production in our factories, rapid transpor- 
tation and better living conditions in our homes. 
It has built our great cities and industrial centers. 
It has torn away the barriers of time and distance 
and made all men neighbors. 


Your Thirty Slaves’: 


The Smithsonian Institution has figured that 
if all our machinery operated by electrical and 
steam power should be taken away, it would re- 
quire the services of 3,000,000,000 hard-working 
slaves to duplicate the work done in America. 
In other words, the use of power and machinery 
gives to every man, woman and child in our coun- 
try the equivalent of 30 slaves, or the average 
family of five has 150 “slaves” working for it. 

But instead of this army-of slaves we have 
electricity working for us at a “wage” so small 
as to bring its services within reach of the poorest 
man’s pocketbook; a sum so small as would not 
even pay for what a servant would eat. 

Push a button and our homes are illuminated 
as by the midday sun; an electric vacuum cleaner 
starts banishing dirt and dust; electric washing 
machines and irons are helping with the house- 
work; an electric fan starts giving cooling 
breezes or an electric heater gives forth warmth; 
an electric range is ready for the cooking of a 
meal; the electric refrigerator starts generating 
ice, or the countless other labor saving devices 
are in action. 

Electricity rings the door bell, or it tows a ship 
through the Panama Canal, lifts a great bridge, 
pulls a train over the mountains, increases the 
efficiency of a modern factory by providing vastly 
increased and better direct illumination and by 
supplying a more efficient and easily controlled 


motive power. It milks the cows of the farmer, 
chops his feed and does a multitude of other 
things. It lights the home, the store and the 
factory. It provides the light by which the sur- 
geon in the hospital performs his operations. It 
has been made available, at any hour day or 
night, through the tremendous efforts of the na- 
tion’s electrical utility companies. 

Yet it was only a short time ago—less than 50 
years—that even the richest kings had none of 
the commonplace things which brighten the lives 
oi the poorest American today. 


The Great Minds of Electricity: 


Many great minds have contributed to the de- 
velopment of the present-day electric central-sta- 
tion systems through which our electricity is 
provided. If only one name were to be men- 
tioned, it would undoubtedly be that of Thomas 
A. Edison. But before Edison, with his marvel- 
ous inventions, and contemporary with him a 
host of other electrical scientists and inventors 
have contributed their part. 

Such men as Dr. William Gilbert, Benjamin 
Franklin, Luigi Galvani, Alesandro Volto, Sir 
Humphry Davy, H. C. Oersted, A. M. Ampere, 
G. S. Ohm, Charles Wheatstone, Michael Fara- 
day, Joseph Henry, Z. T. Gramme, J. C. Max- 
well, A. Pacinotti, S. Z. deFerranti, Werner von 
Siemens, Lord Kelvin and many others did very 
important work. 


Early Inventions: 


Although the electric light and power business, 
as we know it today, is a development of com- 
paratively recent origin, the foundations for it 
were laid by early experimenters in the Seven- 
teenth and Eighteenth centuries. Back in 1600, 
Dr. Gilbert, an English physician, conducted 
numerous experiments and made many important 
discoveries, but it was nearly a century and a half 
later before any great progress was made by 


others who studied the subject. 


Benjamin Franklin’s demonstration by his fa- 
mous kite experiment in 1752, proving that light- 
ning is an electrical phenomenon, is well known. 
About 1790, Galvani discovered a current of elec- 
tricity. Up to that time electricity had been de- 
veloped only by friction. Volta developed the 
electric battery in 1800. Oersted of Copenhagen 
discovered in 1820 the magnetic effect of électric 
current. This paved the way for the later devel- 
opments of electrical machinery. Michael Fara- 
day of England discovered in 1831 the basic prin- 
ciples on which dynamo electric machines are 


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made important discoveries during the early part 
of the Nineteenth century. 

The telegraph was the first great electrical in- 
vention. It was invented by Morse in 1837. Elec- 
tro plating was perfected about the same time. 
The electric motor was developed about 1873. 


The First Central Station: 


Development of the electrical industry, how- 
ever, really dates from Sept. 4, 1882, the day on 
which there was opened in New York city, the 
first central: electricity generating station in the 
world. This plant, known as the Pearl street sta- 
tion, furnished electricity for lighting in a re- 
stricted territory in downtown Manhattan. 

Edison had invented the electric light three 
years previously on Oct. 21, 1879, but until the 
opening of the Pearl street station, it was little 
more than a display or a curiosity. There were 
also in various parts of the country a few isolated 
electric light plants supplying individual custom- 
ers. The inauguration of service from Pearl 
street, however, marked a new epoch, because it 
was the pioneer of the modern electric generating 
and distribution systems. From the plan origin- 
ally conceived by Edison, practically all electrical 
energy in the United States today is generated 


and distributed by central station companies. 


take residential lighting service. 


The first central station only four decades ago 
served 59 customers. Today the electrical in- 
dustry has expanded to 5,654 operating com- 
panies, serving approximately 15,000 communi- 
ties and 12,206,590 customers, of whom 9,676,330 
‘The number of 
customers of electric light and power companies 
in the United States doubled in the six years 
from 1909 to 1915, and doubled again in the next 
six years from 1915 to 1921. The increase today 
is at the rate of more than 1,400,000 a year. 

The Pearl Street station had six generators 
with a total generating capacity of 559.5 kilo- 
watts. The generating capacity of all plants in 
the United States at the beginning of 1923 was 


17,404,000 kilowatts or approximately 22,205,000 


horse power. 

The output of electricity in 1922 set a new high 
record, the total being 47,612,194,000 kilowatt 
hours, according to reports of the U. S. Geological 
Survey. The Commonwealth Edison Company, 
which serves Chicago, in 1922 had an output of 
2,225,442,875 kilowatt hours, the largest produc- 


. tion of any steam central station company in the 


world. An illustration of the rapid development 
of the electrical industry is shown by the fact 
that the Commonwealth Edison Company had a 
generating capacity of only about 640 kilowatts 
in 1888. In 1923 it was over 700,000 kilowatts. 
Today the electric light and power industry 
represents an investment of approximately $5,- 
100,000,000, and about $750,000,000 is spent an- 
nually for new plants and extensions to meet the 
ever-increasing demands for service. The gross 
revenue of the electric light and power companies 


of the country in 1922 was $1,084,000,000. The 
industry is owned by over 1,750,000 men and 
women investors, as well as banks, insurance 
companies and others, their money providing 
funds for building the great system whose serv- 
ices are available to all of the people. 


W here Electricity Comes From: 


The public obtains its electrical energy, which 
we have been picturing, from central generating 
plants or “Central Stations” as they are called, 
where electricity can be produced in large quan- 
tities and sent out from advantageously located 
centers to supply the needs of the people—to 
make their lamps burn, to operate their factory 
machines, to make street cars and interurban cars 
go, to supply the electric flat irons and the elec- 
tric fans, and for all the thousands of uses for 
which electricity is employed. 


Electricity can be produced most economically 
by the use of large generating units, and it can 
also be transmitted and distributed to the great- 
est advantage if all the electrical needs of a large 
community or a number of small communities 
are supplied from one common system of wires. 
Therefore, the modern tendency is for the small 
individual community central station of earlier 
years to disappear, being replaced by the sub- 
stations (or local distributing stations) of large 
systems, giving the smaller towns the benefits 
and economies of the great system. 


There are two kinds of electricity made and 
distributed by a central station—“direct” and 
“alternating.” Direct, or continuous current, 
constantly flows in one direction. This kind of 
current, because it cannot be sent any great dis- 
tance, is used largely in the congested centers of 
populous cities. Alternating current flows first 
in one direction, then reverses, but so fast that 
the changes cannot be detected in an electric 
light by the naked eye. Alternating current can 
be sent, economically, hundreds of miles, and 
therefore, is now used almost universally. 


How Electricity Is Made Available: 


Electricity is produced from some form of heat 
energy, as that obtained by the combustion of 
coal, oil, gas or wood; from some form of 
mechanical energy like that of falling water 


_or (to a slight extent) wind power, or from 


chemical energy, as in batteries. In the case of 
waterpower plants the momentum of the falling 
water is used to turn waterwheels which in turn 
operate electric generators. The water may be 
comparatively small in amount, but of great 
velocity or it may be of low pressure and of 
much volume, or of any combination of. these 
characteristics. 

In the case of the familiar central station pro- 
ducing electrical energy from steam derived from 
the burning of coal we first see long trains of 
sometimes more than a hundred coal cars deliver- 


ing the fuel from the mines of Central Illinois to 
the premises of the central station. (But elec- 
tric generating plants are sometimes built right 
at the coal mine in Illinois and other states.) 
Here the coal is handled by various forms of 
mechanical conveyors and crushers, themselves 
run by electricity, and delivered to the automatic 
stokers of the furnaces without being touched 
by human hands. (See “A,” in illustration.) 
The other raw material (assuming that brains, 
labor and capital are not raw materials) is water, 
and it is delivered to the boilers, the steam pro- 
duced by the application of the heat of the burn- 
ing coal being led through pipes to steam tur- 
bines, where its expansive force and impact are 
used to turn the shafts of electric generators (B). 


The Turbine: 


The principle of the steam turbine is very 
simple. It is practically the same as the water 
turbine, and the water turbine is nothing but 
an elaborated water wheel. The latter receives 
its power from water pressure of rivers or reser- 
voirs of water stored so that when the water 
flows it strikes the blades of the wheel, rotating 
it and producing power. In like manner steam 
generated in a central station by boilers is forced 
against the blades of a steam turbine which 
rotates from this impact, perhaps 1,800 times a 
minute, and produces power. To these turbines 
“electric machines” or generators, as we now 
call them, are usually attached direct to the shaft 
without the use of belts. 

The energy we have pictured as being created 
in a central generating station so far is mechani- 
cal energy and not electrical, but right here, be- 
tween the turbine and the generator, the trans- 
formation takes place. The power that goes into 
the turbine as mechanical energy is taken from 


GENERATION 


4 Robes 
LAG 


DIAGRAM 


TRANSMISSION 


the generator at the other end of the shaft as 
electrical energy. 


In spite of the enormous power locked up in 
a modern generator, the principle of its work 
is founded on very simple laws. Early experi- 
ments by the famous Faraday (born in England, 
1791) marked the beginning of the electric 
generator, and the same laws that Faraday 
worked out are applied to the making of the huge 
generators of today, nothing of importance havy- 
ing been added except elaboration of machinery. 
Faraday first took a coil of wire and a magnet. 
Each time the magnet was thrust into the coil 
its magnetism was found to cause a flow of 
electricity in the coil, as shown by a compass 
near the coil of wire. The same phenomenon 
takes place when a generator rotates. A large 
magnet and several coils of wire connected in a 
circuit do the same work, only thousands of 
times more effectively. So long as the generator 
and turbine rotate a flow of electricity will be 
generated. In fact, nowadays the turbine and 
the generator are so closely related that they are 
made by manufacturers in one machine known 
as a turbo-generator. 


The electricity which comes from the genera- 
tors is so powerful that it must be very care- 
fully controlled. This is accomplished by means 
of various copper switching devices (C). Copper 
is used because it is one of the best conductors 
of electricity, and relatively cheap. The energy 
is often raised to a high pressure because at high 
pressures electricity can be transmitted over long 
distances by use of comparatively small copper 
wires. Electrical energy from the power house 
is thus often sent great distances over “trans- 
mission lines” of poles and wires—the great 
arteries of the electrical system—to the place 
where it is required. 


DISTRIBUTION 


OIRECST CURREN? 


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The Transformer: 


Now, before the electricity which these trans- 
mission lines carry may be put to practical use 
as light or power, the pressure must be greatly 
reduced. A device known as a transformer is 
used to accomplish this. Transformers may be 
used in two ways—they can either “step” the 
pressure up, or reduce the pressure. Sometimes 
huge transformers, (D), are used in “sub-sta- 
tions” from which energy is distributed to Jarge 
sections of a city or to small towns, but the trans- 
formers which are a familiar sight on poles in 
streets or alleys, (E), finally reduce the pressure 
to a safe point for domestic use and send it into 
the dozen or more houses in the midst of which 
the transformer is located. 


The Basic Laws of Electrical Energy: 


Something very interesting takes place within 
the transformer and if our eyes could see elec- 
tricity we should see a remarkable phenomenon 
going on all the time in each one of these little 
iron boxes. We have already noted above, in 
connection with the generator, that when a piece 
of magnetized iron was moved through a coil of 
wire electricity was produced. Early experi- 
menters found another trust which naturally 
followed: viz., that when electricity flowed 
through a coil of wire around a piece of iron 
magnetism was produced in the iron. These 
two principles taken together illustrate how a 
transformer works. Suppose we think of elec- 
trical energy as it travels from the power sta- 
tion along transmission lines into the transformer 
box. There it runs into a coil of wire which 
surrounds a piece of iron. The electricity in the 
coil magnetizes the iron and the magnetized iron 
in its turn produces electricity in another coil, 
which is around the magnet but entirely separ- 
ate from the first coil. The more wires in either 
of these two coils the more pressure we have, 
therefore, if one coil has ten times as many wires 
as the other or “secondary” coil, the pressure at 
the other side of the transformer will be reduced 
to one-tenth of what it was when it entered it. 

From the other side of the transformer elec- 
tricity is led at low pressure into the house or 
factory through a service switch where it can 
be turned on or off, and then through a meter, 
which measures the current. After that it is 
available for toasters, irons and the dozens of 
other household uses. In the case of the large 
neighborhood sub-stations, power taken from the 
secondary side of the large transformers may be 
used to operate street railways or street lighting 
circuits. 


How Electricity Has Revolutionized 


Industry: 

Electricity has made America machineland. 
There are no less than 3,000 uses for electricity. 
Most of them are in industry, but the use of elec- 
tricity for power, as well as for lighting and heat- 
ing, in the home is growing steadily. 


Striking progress in the electrification of Amer- 
ican industry is shown in a recent report of the 
U. S. Bureau of the Census which has just tab- 
ulated the results of its 1919 census of manu- 
facturers. This report shows that at the end of 
that year there were 1,483,039 electrical motors in 
use in the factories of the United States. This is 
nearly twice the number in use only five years 
previously. 

The total horse-power rating of these motors 
was 16,317,383 or nearly double the total horse- 
power rating of the motors five years before. Of 
the primary power used in manufacturing in the 
United States 64.4 per cent is electrical. 


On January 1, 1922, industrial motors served 
by central station electric companies numbered 
1,759,300. They had a rating oi 19,561,200 horse 


power. 


While the use of electrical energy for driving 
motors is the most common use of electricity in 
industry, aside from illumination, it is being 
used more and more for generating heat and 
bringing about chemical reactions in many manu- 
facturing processes. 


In the latter field electricity has a wide use in 
electro-chemistry, a department of industrial en- 
deavor with which most people are not familiar. 
In electro-chemistry, electricity is used to break 
down, build up, cover, uncover, separate and 
blend. Some remarkable accomplishments result. 

These are probably better understood by refer- 
ence to the experiment conducted in school lab- 
oratories of reducing water to its component 
parts, hydrogen and oxygen, by passing an elec- 
tric current through it. That is an example of 
breaking down. Electro-plating is an example of 
the building up process. In electro-plating, cop- 
per plates are immersed in a solution of silver 
nitrate and by! passing current through the solu- 
tion, silver is deposited on one of the plates. 


There are many other reactions brought about 
by electricity on a large scale which are the basis 
of the electro-chemistry industry. Eighty per 
cent of the copper produced in the United States 
is separated from the ore by electricity. Gold 
and silver are separated from ore in the same 
way. Aluminum, nickel and silver are “recov- 
ered” from ore and waste. Almost all gold jew- 
elry is gilded by electrolysis. 

Many bakeries are electrified. In some of them 
the entire process of baking bread is mechanical. 
Flour is received by electric conveyors and me- 
chanically sifted, blended and mixed. The dough 
is cut into loaf sizes by electric machines and put 
into ovens. Electric machines wrap and seal the 
bread after it is baked and electric trucks deliver 
it to the grocer and the individual customer. 


Electricity has increased the speed of opera- 
tions in the foundry business. Giant magnetic 
cranes lift heavy materials and place them where 
needed. The “skull cracker,” or giant ball, used 
to smash up scrap by being dropped on it and 
raised by a magnet, has cut down the time re- 
quired for this important operation. 


Use of electricity for smelting ore is a compara- 
tively recent development. Making of “electric 
steel” is a fast-growing industry. The number 
of electric furnaces has increased rapidly. In 
1914, 25,000 tons of “electric steel” was produced. 
The production five years later in 1919 was 
1,150,000 tons. 

By using electricity, vanadium and chrome— 
new kinds of steel—were produced. These are 
used for automobile and airplane parts and for 
castings where a perfect texture is necessary. 
Electric steel is also used in making tools such as 
drilling bits which must stand hard wear. 

Electric heat is being applied to iron, nickel, 
copper, silver, brass and bronze and other non- 
ferrous metals. Electric furnaces produce such 
electro-chemical “mysteries” as ferro manganese, 
silican, tungsten, molybdenum, chromium and 
titanium, abrasive materials such as carborun- 
dum and alaxite, magnesite, dolomite and calcite. 

The great development of the future will prob- 
ably be electrification of the railroads. The ex- 
perimental stage of electrification of the railroads 
seems to be past. The terminals of several im- 
portant railroads have been electrified in certain 
cities and in Montana a railroad has electrified 
its lines across the mountains for several hundred 
miles. Four thousand ton trains go up and down 
heavy mountain grades under perfect control at 
speeds never known before and with a regularity 
that leaves no doubt as to the practicability of 
electrification. The big obstacle in the way of 
railroad electrification at present, however, is its 
cost, but once the railroads have proper credit so 
they can induce investors to provide the enor- 
mous sums necessary for this improvement, great 
savings will be made in the nation’s coal re- 
sources and railroad travel will be clean and more 
rapid than it is today. 


What an Electrical Map of the 
U.S. A. Would Look Like: 


Ii one could see, upon a map of the United 
States, outlines of systems for generating, trans- 
mitting and distributing electricity the impres- 
sion would be something like a number of in- 
ter-connected spider-webs, each large generating 
station being the center of its own web. Each 
system may have several generating stations, the 
whole network being tied together in such a way 
that the breakdown of a machine in one generat- 
‘ing station or the failure of a sub-station would 
not, usually, mean loss of service to the customer, 
other sources of supply being available in emer- 
gency. 

Already many farms have electricity delivered 
to them by the central station plants and within 
a very short time it is to be expected that the 
rural districts will have the same efficient and 
modern service as is possible in the thickly popu- 
lated cities. 

The same plants that serve the cities, now fur- 
nish service to the smaller communities and to 
the farms. They are no longer local distributors, 


Total Generation in 


but reach out as iar as their wires reach. One 
company, alone, may serve hundreds of commu- 
nities from its central station energy producing 
plants. That is why the rendering of service is 
now regulated by the state. It has outgrown its 
original boundaries. 


The Illinois Super-Power System: 


The first electric generating stations and dis- 
tribution systems were constructed in large 
cities, such as Chicago and New York, only about 
30 years ago. 

At first many small stations were constructed 
in the same city to serve very restricted areas 
which did not exceed two miles square. The art 
of generating and distributing electric energy 
rapidly advanced so that about 10 years after the 
completion of the first plants we find that in the 
large cities many of these small plants were sup- 
erseded by very much larger generating stations 
which supplied the entire community. 


About 20 or 25 years ago small plants were 
also constructed in medium sized cities and 
smaller communities of not less than 5,000 inhab- 
itants. At this time, therefore, only a relatively 
small proportion of these people of any country 
living in cities or towns were able to secure any 
electric service, because in the state of the art 
when small plants were necessary for each com- 
munity, there remained thousands of small com- 
munities in which no electric service was supplied 
because of the impossibility of furnishing this 
service without loss. 


Early Systems Small: 


The early systems in most small and medium- 
sized towns did not operate 24 hours per day 
but only from dusk to dawn over each night, 
since practically the entire business supplied in 
those days consisted of lighting. 

Aiter 15 or 20 years ago the electric motor com- 
menced to develop and many of these plants were 


then operated throughout 24 hours per day in 


order to furnish motor power. This 24-hour op- 
eration was extended to only a portion of the 
plants in existence at that time, as in a great 
number of communities sufficient load in the day 
time could not be found to pay the additional 





Statistical Data Showing Develoaue: 
in the United States ] 









1902 1907 19) 

Capital Invested ...... 504,740,352 1$1,096,913,622 |$2,175,678,266 |$3,060,3 
Gross Revenue .......... 78,735,500|$ 175,642,3381$ 302,273,3981$ 526,8 
Capacity in Kilo- iat 

WALCS alr. eee 1,212,200 2,709,225 8,9 
No. of Customers 

CPotal iat 1,465,060 1,946,979 6,9 

Residence; 4. 

Commercial ...........- 

Power) 222-2 


Kilowatt - hours ....} 2,507,051,515| 5,862,276,737 |11,569,109,885 |29,650,0 





expenses of operating the plant and system 
throughout the full day and night. — 

The plants of 15 or 20 years ago in small and 
: medium-sized communities proved to be expen- 
sive to operate and the rates for electric light 
and power service were therefore comparatively 
high—in fact so high that they would seem ri- 
diculous and impossible today. : 

A great many of the early plants established 
in this manner failed financially, notwithstanding 
the high rates received, because many such sys- 
tems had been installed in communities where 
there was not a sufficient volume of business, 
even at the high rate, to pay the expense of opera- 
tion and a return upon the investment for these 
systems. 

About 15 years ago the condensing steam tur- 
bine was developed in very much larger sizes 
than the reciprocating engine. It was found to 
be very much more economical in the use of coal 
and in addition could be built in very large units. 
Development of large stations became possible 
and it began to be generally recognized that the 
only way in which the advantages of the develop- 
ment of the electrical art could be extended to 
the smaller and medium-sized cities was by 
means of transmission lines which would receive 
4 their supply at one large generating station and 

. transmit it for use to a large number of commu- 
nities. This would permit of 24-hour service, it 
was found, and also of a reduction in electric 
rates, then something like 20 cents per kilowatt 
hour, which figure today would be considered an 
impossible rate. 








Transmission Line Systems: 


Commencing about 10 years ago transmission 
systems of this character were built. Large num- 
bers of isolated generating stations were dis- 
placed by the new service and all these commu- 
nities were then given 24-hour service in place 
of the former restricted supply. Thousands of 
communities, too small to operate an isolated 
plant, were given electric service for the first 
time at rates very much less than formerly 
charged in the larger communities which had the 

; advantages of the early, small stations. 
) Industries were furnished with power from the 
i new systems which before that time had been 











he Electric Light and Power Industry 
ring the Last 20 Years 








t 1918 1919 1920 1921 1922 
41($3,121,600,000 $3,345,071,000/$3,688,597,000}$4,658,000,000 Ther ono nog 
'40|/$ 664,850,000]$ 773,650,000|$ 932,000,000/$ 983,000,000 1,084,000,000 
1107 9,174,295 12,761,000 13,000,000 14,466,915 17,404,000 
421 7,498,105 8,457,762 9,597,997 10,794,083 12,206,590 
5,744,800 6,517,600 7,465,900 8,467,600 9,676,330 
1,445,000 1,585,300 1,744,500]: 1,896,900 2,080,260 
308,305 352,862 387,597 429,584 450,000 


00 |37,826,410,000)38,921,000,000) 43,555,000,000]40,976,000,000)47,612,194,000 
RR a a ee a, 


compelled to generate power by installation oi 
inefficient stations with resulting high costs of 
operation. Energy was furnished for great num- 
bers of domestic appliances used in homes, such 
as electric irons, toasters; washing machines, vac- 
uum cleaners, fans and finally thé electric range. 

In no section of our country has this great 
development been more marked than in Illinois. 
Before the days when “transmission lines were 
built, electric service*was available to only about 
200 communities, and inithe majority of cases 
only for part of.the 24 hours. 


Illinois a Leader: 


At the present time, after a ten-year period of 
continuous construction of transmission lines 
throughout the state by many public service com- 
panies, 24-hour electric service is being rendered 
to a total of 1,080 organized communities. It is 
fair to say that practically all the communities 
now receiving electric service from transmission 
systems, which were not included in the original 
200 communities; could not be furnished this 
service upon a basis where it would be a com- 
mercial possibility. There have been cases where, 
small isolated plants have been constructed in the 
last 10 years in our state, but these’ were usually 
cases where transmission service was impossible 
to obtain and many of these have since been sup- 
erseded by transmission line service. 

A map of the state of Illinois showing all of 
the transmission lines now in-operation, appears 
as an amazing network of lines, and showing 
that almost all of the state-is-now receiving the 
benefits of this class of service. 

There is now in operation in Illinois about 
6,500 miles of transmission line operating at high 
voltages, the predominating voltage being 33,000. 
Branching off from these great energy lines are 
thousands of miles of lateral wires which lead 
to the users of electricity. There is now installed 
and in operation a total of 1,200,000 kilowatts of 
generating capacity in central stations of the util- 
ities of the state. 

Illinois stands first among the states in the 
number of electric light customers and second in 
number of electric power customers served by 
central stations. The number of electric lighting 
customers served in the four leading states in the 
United States on Jan. 1, 1922, was as follows: 


TUTOR OI ee en 858,000 
CANOLA tage nce 752,000 
Dawn OF ie Riuacnase 686,000 
Pennsylvania ...........-.---943,000 


State was a Pioneer: 


Illinois was a pioneer in the building of the 
early transmission systems serving a large num- 
ber of communities from a central source. Great 
as is the present super-power system, large addi- 
tions are constantly being made. 

By tracing the extreme limits of some of the 
inter-connected transmission lines in Illinois, one 
notes a continuous transmission system starting 


at Zion City, at the extreme northeast corner of 
the state, southward around Chicago as far as 
Bismarck—a transmission line distance of ap- 
proximately 250 miles. This same system is in- 
ter-connected west as far as Freeport, Erie and 
Toulon, these three points being about 225 miles 
from Zion City along the transmission lines. 

Further south is a continuous system extend- 
ing from Keokuk, Ia., through central Illinois to 
Terre Haute, Ind., a transmission line distance 
of approximately 350 miles. This is the longest 
continuous transmission line in the state. There 
is also a continuous transmission line system ex- 
tending from Danville on the east, Peoria on the 
north to Venice on the south, giving a transmis- 
sion line mileage of about 200 miles. From Keo- 
kuk, Ia., to St. Louis is another transmission line 
of 141 miles. 


Many of the transmission systems in Iilinois 
near state lines are connected with lines in the 
adjoining states of Wisconsin, Indiana, Missouri 
and Iowa. While the systems referred to com- 
prise the larger and more striking transmission 
lines, it will be noted that there are numerous 
other systems not connected to the larger sys- 
tems, but which serve comparatively large areas. 

The further development of the transmission 
line systems in Illinois, which will take place in 
the immediate future, will undoubtedly be the 
extension of present systems to serve additional 
territory and the inter-connection of a great many 
of the systems now in operation. A compara- 
tively small number of miles of transmission lines 
will inter-connect almost all of the transmission 
systems of the state. The inter-connection of the 
existing systems will result in achieving substan- 
tial benefits to the systems thus connected 
through concentrating the production of the en- 
ergy required in the large and more efficient gen- 
erating stations. 

To illustrate the relative advantages of the 
economic results which are now secured in the 
generation of energy in the large transmission 
systems, as compared with the smaller isolated 
plants which were superseded, the small plants, 
before the construction of transmission lines, 
used an average of 15 pounds of coal per kilowatt 
hour. Through building large and efficient plants, 
discontinuing the operation of a large number of 
small, inefficient stations and distributing energy 
by transmission lines, the average coal consump- 
tion is possible of reduction to but 344 pounds 
per kilowatt hour. 


Big Benehits Obtained: 


The benefits of this great gain in efficiency 
have been given, to the customers in the form of 
lower rates than those originally charged by the 
smaller plants, 24-hour service to all communi- 
ties served and adequate power supplies for in- 
dustries at reasonable rates. Notwithstanding 
the fact that coal today costs 100 per cent more 
per ton than in pre-war times, the average rates 
now charged are very much less than the average 


190 


rates ten years ago in these same communities. 
If such systems had not been constructed, the 
average rates now prevailing would be at least 
25 to 50 per cent higher in order to pay the cost 
of operating the smaller, inefficient stations. 

Aiter most of the existing transmission sys- 
tems in Illinois have been inter-connected, and 
the loads served by these systems continue to 
increase to much larger amounts, there will un- 
doubtedly be constructed new, large capacity, 
high-voltage trunk lines, or true super-power 
lines, which will serve as feeder lines to the 
existing transmission systems at a large number 
of intersecting points. Such super-power lines 
will undoubtedly receive their supply of energy 
from very large central stations of the most ef- 
ficient type, and the development of such a sys- 
tem will enable the more inefficient stations still 
operating to be discontinued. The existing trans- 
mission lines will then occupy the relative posi- 
tion of primary distribution lines, with the new 
trunk lines serving as: the transmission source. 
Such a development will not render useless any 
of the present systems now in service, but on the 
contrary serves to increase their capacity and 
thus enable increased capacities to be supplied 
to all of the communities served to keep up with 
the growth of these communities. 


Electricity Cannot be Stored: 


One characteristic of electrical power which 
has an interesting bearing on central station en- 
terprises is that it cannot be stored. This is not 
literally true, because you are familiar with dry 
batteries and the larger storage batteries, but for 
general power purposes in large cities batteries 
are not practical, except as an emergency reserve. 

The result is that when a customer of a central 
station company makes a “demand” upon the 
company for electricity by turning a switch, the 
company must be prepared to supply this demand 
instantaneously and it must likewise be pre- 
pared to supply all of the simultaneous demands 
of all of its customers. 

Unfortunately central stations cannot make up 
in advance enough electricity to supply their cus- 
tomers for a day or a week or a month, as a store 
stocks up with goods in advance of its custom- 
ers’ demands. This very fact puts an added bur- 
den on the central station because it must main- 
tain a plant and equipment large enough to de- 
liver the huge amounts of electricity for the dark 
and busy days of December, even though during 
the month of June, when the days are long, a 
much smaller plant costing very much less 
money might suffice. 

Similarly plant and equipment must be large 
enough to take care of the very heavy demands 
of the late afternoons of winter months, whereas 
during the rest of the day and night only a small 
fraction of that amount of electricity would be 
demanded. These highest points of “demand” 
are called the “peak load” and the central station 
managers always have to figure on investing 
enough money to take care of the “peak load.” 


WAUKEGAN 







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GLENCOE 











ILLINOIS 
SUPER-POWER 
ELECTRICITY 
SYSTEM 


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This map shows the 
location of the high 
tension electric trans- 
mission lines, ranging 
ds icantly 66,000 ' 
volts, whi compose ? 6 - 
the “backbone” of the great energy sys- | --¢]- Pacers ys — oman ae 
tem serving the state’s people. Radiating Being ye I ' 
from these “trunk lines” are thousands gongsporo ! : 
of miles of distribution lines, covering the ) ! tots 
state like a closely woven web, which carry ; ‘. 
the electricity into the homes, offices and a 
factories. Ms 


yYCAIRO 


Watching the Service Demand: 


Let us go to the electric lighting company and 
see just how electricity is made to do its work. 
We walk into the office of the: manager of one 
of these companies. One of the manager’s duties 
is to watch the traffic. He is the guardian over 
the flow of electricity. Every minute of the day 
he can tell something interesting about what the 
citizens of his community are doing. Before him 
he has a long sheet on which lines indicate the 
rise and fall in the use of the service he is fur- 
nishing. His fingers are on the “pulse” every 
minute. The line which he is watching is called 
the “load,” which simply means the total amount 
of service being used at a given moment. 

We will watch him for a day. Let us say this 
particular manager is manager of your local elec- 
tric company. In the larger companies there is 
a man assigned to this work solely, and he is 
called the “load dispatcher.” 

It is 5 o’clock in the morning. The line is 
running along straight. It is 5:30 A. M.; the 
line commences nervously to start upwards. 
Some people are rising and turning on the lights. 
It is 6 A. M.; the line has shot far up. Many 
people are getting up, but it is still dusk, and 
they must have light. It is 7 A. M.; the line has 
taken an almost perpendicular upturn. Prac- 
tically everybody in town is now up; some are 
using electricity to read the morning paper, some 
for cooking; the street car systems have put on 
many cars hauling people to work; the industries 
have turned on electricity for operating the big 
machines. It is 8 o’clock; his line shows that out 
in the residence districts but little current is be: 
ing used, but in the manufacturing centers, the 
load is tremendous. So he watches the current 
that would have gone to the residential district 
shift to the manufacturing district. The street 
car load is much less than it was while people 
were going to work. 

It is mid-day. The residential district load has 
“picked up” a little. Some women are ironing, 
others using sewing machines, washing ma- 
chines, or vacuum cleaners, still others are cook- 
ing lunch. 

‘Afternoon sees his line up near the top of his 
sheet and keeping steady. Most of the current 
is being used in the manufacturing plants. 

Five o’clock comes. The workers quit for the 
day. The mills, with the exception of the great 
electric furnaces in the steel mills and smelters, 
close down their machinery. But at the same 
time has come a great demand from another 
source. The people must getihome. The trans- 
portation electric load swells. The residential dis- 
tricts are again demanding electricity for lighting 
and cooking. His load shifts over to that side. 
Up until 6 P. M. it may sag a trifle, while the 
industrial load has eased, but then the great de- 
mand comes for the evening lighting of the 
homes, and it picks up again. 

Then comes 9 o’clock. The children have been 
put to bed. Many lights have been darkened. 


10 


The load sags; 10 o’clock and many grown-ups 
are going to bed and it sags more; 11 o’clock and 
the majority are in bed and the demand now is 
far below that of an hour before. The great 
engines in the power plant can be eased up a bit, 
given a little rest, when repairs and cleaning can 
be done for a repetition of this giving of service 
in the morning. 

What the electric manager saw, the gas and 
telephone and transportation traffic men saw, 
their line only changing to represent the happen- 
ings in their particular branch of giving service. 
They are the genii who “drive” invisible forces 
about their work, seeing that at all times they 
work efficiently and are always on the spot when 
needed and that their strength is equal to the 
tasks they must perform. 


Governmental Regulation: 


Electric light and power companies are regu- 
lated as are other public utilities such as gas, 
street railway and telephone companies. In prac- 
tically every state in the union they are regulated 
by state commissions created for that purpose. 

In Illinois the regulatory body is the Illinois 
Commerce commission. Illinois has had state 
regulation since Jan. 1, 1914, when the Illinois 
Public Utilities commission came into existence 
under an act passed by the state legislature dur- 
ing the previous year. In 1921 the legislature 
modified the law to some extent and changed the 
name of the regulatory body to the Illinois Com- 
merce commission. This commission exercises 
supervision over the rates and service of the util- 
ities. The theory of these commissions is that 
they will be an impartial judge in all controver- 
sies which might arise, so that no stumbling 
blocks may be thrown in the way of proper and 
continuous development of the various utility 
services for all of the people. 


Why Public Utilities are Built 
on Borrowed Money: 


In one important respect the utility industry 
is unlike almost any other business in the nation. 
The electric light and power, gas, telephone, 
street railways and steam railroads have had to 
be built up on borrowed money. They make no 
“profits” in the sense that most businesses do. 
Under the system of regulation in effect they are 
permitted to charge rates which will enable them 
to earn operating expenses and a fair return on 
the money invested in their properties. Conse- 
quently all additions and extensions must be 
financed by the sale of new securities to thrifty 
investors. 

The reason for this latter is simple. Where the 
ordinary business turns its capital over three to 
five times a year, the utility company turns it 
only once in four or five years. In the case of a 
dry goods store, for instance, the merchant bills 
out to his customers and gets back from them 
each year several times as much money as he 
has invested in his business, whereas the utility 


= 


bills out to 1ts customers and gets back each year 
only a small fraction of the money that its stock- 
holders have invested in it. If you should decide, 
for example, to become a merchant in your home 
town and you invested $10,000 in the business 


you would expect to transact a total business 


each year of $30,000 or $40,000 or perhaps $50,000, 
but on the other hand if you decided to start a 
utility enterprise in your home town and you in- 
vested $10,000 in that enterprise you could only 
expect to transact a business of $2,000 each year, 
or at the best $3,000. 


Schools Now Hold Generations That 
Must Carry on the Utilities: 
Service of these commodities necessary to 


modern life does not begin, nor end, with the 


mere installation of power plants, distributing 
plants, the maze of equipment, nor the building 
up of great bodies of employes as the operating 
forces. 

There are three fundamental elements back of 
all this: 

1. Individual brains: this is personified in the 
man who sees the possibilities of rendering 
service to a community; who devotes his 
time, experience and brains to skillfully 
planning that service to meet needs; who 
interests people having money in his “big 
idea,” organizes a company and gives the 
public the benefits of his initiative. 

2. The investors: Those of the state and 
nation, who having saved through thrift 
from their earnings, become interested and 
purchase securities—stocks or bonds—in 
the company in the expectation that it will 
be successful and will earn profits for them 
in return for their lending their savings to- 
ward financing this plant that is to render 
public service indiscriminately to all per- 
sons of a community. 

3. The inventors: The geniuses who made 
possible the great machines and wonderful 
apparatus that is necessary to produce 
service, and who are constantly striving 
for improvement, they too expecting finan- 
cial reward for their labors. 

These three elements of service form an un- 
breakable chain. Were it not for the initiative, 
daring and constructive effort of the man “with 
the idea” and who carries it to success, the com- 
pany that furnishes service would not come into 
existence; were it not for the great army of in- 
vestors, made up of men and women who have 
saved, of banks, trust funds and insurance com- 
panies, the large sums of money necessary to 
build the plants planned by the promoter would 
not be possible; were it not for the ceaseless work 
of the inventor and developer, already a creator 
and striving for further improvement in machin- 
ery and methods of production, the service itself 
could not be rendered. All three are indispen- 
sable to one another. Were any one of them to 
become discouraged, development would imme- 


11 


diately lag and the nation would be the loser. 
In the schools today are those who in the future 


must “carry on”; who must soon be in the har- 


ness working out the problems of light, heat, 
transportation and communication for the nation 


-and the world; problems that will be none the 


less complex than those that the great pioneers 
have faced. The tremendous fight of the pioneers 
—those of the “first generation,” the men with 
the vision—who convinced the world that such 
“absurdities” as electric lighting, electric power, 
street cars that moved by invisible power, tele- 
phone wires that could carry a voice over un- 
limited spaces, gas that could actually be piped 
and made to cook, heat and operate: great fac- 
tories, were in reality possible, and through over- 
coming incredibility and actual superstition made 
possible a revolution of home, commercial and 
industrial life, has not ended. Within the next 
ten years the demands of the nation for service 
will probably be double that of now as a result 
of the more complex civilization, increase in pop- 
ulation and need of more intensive and econom- 
ical production. 


Definitions of Electrical Terms: 


AN OHM:— 
The practical unit of electrical resistance. It 
is named for G. S. Ohm, the German scientist. 


Illustration: The difficulty with which water 
flows through a pipe is determined by the size, 
shape, length, smoothness and so forth of the 
pipe. This difficulty with which current flows 
along a wire is determined by the size, length 
and material of the wire. 
ance is measured in ohms. 
AN AMPERE:— 

A unit of measurement to determine the rate 
of flow of electric current along a wire. It is 
named after A. M. Ampere, French mathemati- 
cian. 

Illustration: The rate at which water flows 
through a pipe which may be checked by open- 
ing any faucet and measuring what comes out is 
generally measured gallons per minute. The rate 
of flow of electric current is measured by Am- 
peres. 

A VOLT :— 

A volt represents the force required to produce 
a current of one ampere when applied to a circuit 
of unit resistance. The name is derived from 


Volta, the Italian physicist. 


Illustration: The flow of electric current in a 
single circuit is just about the same thing as the 
flow of water through a pipe. The three princi- 
pal elements are found under practically iden- 
tical circumstances, namely, pressure imposed to. 
induce flow; rate of flow and resistance to flow. 
Pressure exerted to send electricity along a wire 
is sometimes known as. “electro-motive-force” 
and is commonly measured in volts. 

AN ELECTRO-MAGNETIC UNIT :— 

A system of units based upon the attraction or 

repulsion between magnetic poles, employed to 


The electrical resist- ° 


measure quantity, pressure, etc., in connection 
with electric currents. 


A WATT :— 


A watt is the unit of electrical power produced 
when one ampere of current flows with an elec- 
tric pressure of one volt applied. A watt is equal 
approximately to 1/746 of one horse-power, or 
one horse-power is equal to 746 watts. It de- 
rives its name from James Watt, a Scottish engi- 
neer and inventor. 


A KILO-WATT :— 

A unit of electric power, equal to one thousand 
watts, especially applied to the output of dyna- 
mos. Electric power is usually expressed in kilo- 
watts. As the watt is equal to 1/746 horse-power, 
the kilowatt equals 1000/746 or 1.34 horse-power. 

Kilo is of Greek origin and means one thou- 
sand. A kilowatt is one thousand watts. 


A KILOWATT HOUR:— 

A kilowatt hour means the work performed by 
one kilowatt of electric power during an hour's 
time. 


HORSE-POWER:— 

A unit of mechanical power; the power re- 
quired to raise 550 pounds to the height of one 
foot in one second, or 33,000 pounds to that 
height in a minute. Horse-power involved three 
elements, force, distance and time. If we ex- 
press the force in pounds and the distance passed 
through in feet, it is the solution of and the 
meaning for the term “foot pounds.” Hence a 
foot pound is a resistance equal to one pound 
moved one foot. 

James Watt, Scotch inventor, was asked how 
many horses his engines would replace. To ob- 
tain data as to actual performance in continuous 
work, he experimented with powerful horses, and 
found that one traveling 2%4 miles per hour, or 
220 feet per minute, and harnessed to a rope lead- 
ing over a pulley and down a vertical shaft could 
haul up a weight averaging 100 pounds, equaling 
22,000 foot pounds per minute. 

To give good measure, Watt increased the 
measurement by 50 per cent, thus getting the 
familiar unit of 33,000 minute foot pounds. 


HORSE-POWER ELECTRIC :— 

A unit of electrical work, expressed in watts. 
It is equal to 746 watts. To express the rate of 
doing electrical work in mechanical horse-power 
units, divide the number of watts by 746. 


ELECTRICAL CURRENT :— 
Current is the term applied to a flow of elec- 
tricity through a conductor. 


DIRECT CURRENT :— 

Direct or continuous current flows constantly 
in one direction. This current, because it cannot 
be sent any great distance, is used largely in the 
congested centers of thickly populated cities. 


ALTERNATING CURRENT :— ines 
Alternating current flows first in one direction, 


then reverses, but so fast that the changes cannot —_— 


be detected in an electric light bulb by the naked 
eye. Alternating current can be sent economic- 
ally hundreds of miles, and, therefore, is now 
used almost universally. Ff 


THE PART ELECTRICITY PLAYED 


IN THE MAKING OF THIS BOOK 





The Type—Set by an electric machine. 

The Illustrations—Electricity furnished the bright arti- 
ficial light, drying heat and current used in the engraving 
process. 

Electrotypes—Made by electrically depositing copper 
on wax moulds. 

The Printing—The presses were run by electricity. 

Folding—An electric folding machine saved hours ot 
hand-labor. 

Binding—The machines that stitched the pages were 
run by electricity. 

Cutting—Electric paper cutters trimmed the pages to 
the proper size. 


How to Use This Bulletin: 


NOTE—There are four ends of speech, or in 


other words, four purposes for which men speak; 
first, to make an idea clear; second, to make an 
idea impressive ; third, to make men believe some- 
thing, that is, to convince; and to lead men to 
action. 


Rhetoric, Oral English, and Current Topics 
Classes: Suggested topics for theme writing; 
Oral English and Current Topics discussions. 


1. To make an Idea Clear: 

Describe the Electrical Equipment of this 
Community. 

2. To Make an Idea Impressive: 

The New World Created by Electrical Inven- 
tions. 

3. To Convince: 
Debate. Resolved: That Electricity Has 
Had a Greater Effect Upon Human Life 
Than Have the Railroads. 

4. To Secure Action: 

Make Our City the Best 
Equipped City in the State. 
Other Topics: 
1, An Electrically Equipped Home. «> 
2. Some New Uses for Electricity, ~~ 
3. A Short Story of Edison’s Life. 
Debate: 


1. Large Central Stations Systems Are Pref- 
erable to Many Smaller Plants. 


2. That Thomas A. Edison Is America’s 
Greatest Inventor. 


Electrically 





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